Korea decides to exempt Bitcoins from capital gains tax
While the wild ride of the digital currency continues, price discrepancies between different exchanges have subsided. With Bitcoin currently trading at $832 on BitStamp, prices on Mt Gox are $840 – a difference of only $8 is negligible considering the $100 discrepancies we observed a week ago. The latest batch of curious data surrounding the curios currency came out of South Korea. The government there has implied that there will be no capital gains tax applied to Bitcoin profits.
While miners and speculators are cheering the news with excitement, others are more skeptical and are claiming that this illegitimates the digital currency as an investment and the lack of taxing from the part of the government is interpreted by some people as a stance that Bitcoin is not a real investment. The government made the announcement in a rather progressive way by posting its opinion on the Facebook page of the Korean Bitcoin community and it should be treated as a clarification of current law.
One has to acknowledge that the second that pretty much any government accepts that profits from the digital currency are taxable this will greatly increase the legitimacy of crypto currencies. Bitcoin aficionados are defending the stance that the step shows that the government is not willing to stifle innovation and is interested in accelerating the adoption rate, as it will permit the local community to continue accumulating the digital currency.